What is a database? A database is a container of related data, usually identified by data stored in tabular, row-column format. This differs from a datastore in that a datastore usually refers to a single object. A datastore could be a PDF (Adobe Acrobat format) document, a word processing document, a picture, or some other format or document.

The most common format for databases is now SQL or Structured Query Language. This is an international standard, although there is no formal certification process to determine compliance with the published standard.

This article only covers backing up from the Command Linux (i.e., the shell, usually bash or korn (ksh) shells).

If you wanted to back up the database timsdata, you would simply use a command like:

mysqldump -c -u tim -p timsdata > timsdata.sql

This would create a file called timsdata.sql in the current directory. You should be aware that where I've entered the name tim in italics, you should specify another authorized user for the database.